along with Tien's many other failings, including his inability to understand her sense of honor or how life with him has crippled her, causes Ekaterin to make up her mind to leave him. When she tells him her decision, Tien collects Miles from the Administration Building, where he has been reviewing records, and takes him out to the Waste Heat experiment station, a large building in the middle of nowhere, supposedly constructed to conduct experiments with the terraforming process, but which Tien now tells Miles has been used by Soudha for graft, creating phantom employees to draw payroll, ordering fictitious equipment, and pocketing the difference. Investigating the supposedly empty building, they are surprised to find activity there, as Soudha and other employees of the Waste Heat division are busy loading something large into lift trucks. Soudha stuns both men and chains them to a railing outside, in the non-breathable atmosphere. Although the conspirators have sent for help to free the men, Tien's breath mask was not full when they left, and he panics and dies of asphyxiation while Miles can do nothing but watch. Miles is rescued by Ekaterin, who must now deal with her husband's death, get Nikolai the treatment he needs before Tien's health benefits run out, leave Komarr to go back to Barrayar, and figure out what to do with the life that has suddenly been given back to her at the expense of her husband's. While assisting with treating Nikolai, Miles realizes he is falling in love with Ekaterin at the worst possible time. Tackling the expanded problem of what the engineers had been ordering and working on at the experiment station, Miles, Vorthys, and other engineers figure out that the group had been working on a wormhole destroyer, and were planning to permanently close the wormhole between Barrayar and Komarr, cutting Barrayar off from the rest of the galaxy forever. However, there is a fifty-fifty chance that the device will actually release the wormhole energy in a destructive wave that would destroy the device and anything nearby, such as a ship—or a space station. At the same time, Ekaterin had been sent up to the jump station to meet her arriving aunt, Helen Vorthys, where they both stumble into one of the plotters, forcing him to capture them and hold them hostage until the device can be utilized. After attempting to foil them once by pulling a fire alarm, Ekaterin manages to get her hands on a remote control for a float cradle holding the device, and smash it, foiling the Komarrans' plan. However, they still have their two hostages, and it takes all of Miles's wits and determination to negotiate their release, and the surrender of the terrorists. Miles has to head back to Barrayar to report, but he is secure in the knowledge that Ekaterin will be following, and he intends to do whatever is necessary to make her his—the first step being to make her even consider another marriage.
A Civil Campaign (1999)
Winner, Sapphire Award
With Emperor Gregor's wedding fast approaching, Miles, Mark, and others arrive on Barrayar to add their own unpredictable chaos to the social event of their generation. Fresh from preventing either the destruction of a jump station or the collapse of Barrayar's wormhole, Miles returns to Vorkosigan House to prepare for his role as Gregor's Second in the upcoming nuptial ceremony. Head-over-heels about Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who is still in her traditional year of mourning, he plots to stay close to her by offering her a commission to create a garden on a bare spot of ground near Vorkosigan House. Meanwhile, Mark has returned from Beta Colony after a year of university and therapy, and has brought with him Doctor Enrique Borgos, a scientist from Escobar who has created "butter bugs," bioengineered insects that he thinks can be modified to eat Barrayaran pest plants, and which secrete a nutritious paste as a product that they plan to market. Mark's burgeoning relationship with Kareen Koudelka, however, has hit a snag, as she is having a bit of an identity crisis, feeling pressured returning